A new trailer introducing the game's first playable race has been released by the Warhammer 40K crew: The Imperium of Man.

"After centuries of exile, the Imperium of Man has returned to the Sargos sector," begins the trailer video. The planet Sanctum is the stronghold for man, and the humans are holding it against a host of enemies eager to take it back.

As always, while it's fun to hear all about a new playable race, it's even better to see it. With that in mind, the developers have put together a lineup of detailed new screenshots and a trailer video to introduce the race to players.

Today we have a rather silly image of just how far inter-alliance fleet maneuvers can go when you're not paying attention. This image comes to us from Clovermite, who writes in:

"I was managing my Planetary Interaction structures while doing a mining op. It was actually a pretty significant event, as it was the first inter-alliance fleet we formed since signing a non-aggression pact. When I exited out of the PI interface, I was a bit baffled to see such a strange looking ship... Then it dawned on me -- the guy from the other alliance had unwittingly sidled the fore of his ship into the aft of mine. But hey, I guess there's no better way to seal inter-alliance cooperation than an interracial 'transaction' between an Orca and an Osprey. We both had a good laugh and took screenshots."

During the first few days of the event, locator agent traces on key Sansha slave actors between attacks revealed their presence in a system named 3-CE1R.

This was quickly written off by many EVE players as a roleplaying inconsistency as that system is within the Jove Empire. Jove space is currently unreachable as the mysterious and technologically advanced race decided long ago to cut the stargate connections between their empire and the rest of New Eden. When random wormholes through space began spawning after the Seylinn disaster, none appeared to connect to Jove space. This led players to believe that the Jove Directorate possessed some form of control over wormhole formation, able to at least block it from occurring in their systems.

The possibility loomed that the Sansha fleet appearing to be stationed in 3-CE1R may not have been a mistake. Sansha incursions into high security space proved without a doubt that they had somehow mastered the ability to manipulate wormholes. Not only could they make the wormholes appear over their target planets with pin-point accuracy, they were also able to block non-Sansha pilots from entering the hole and could collapse it at will.

Speculation ran wild within the roleplaying community. Perhaps Sansha's Nation, possessing impressive knowledge of cybernetic integration, had managed to up-link with a Sleeper database and learn the secret to controlling wormholes. Worse yet, if they had managed to break through whatever defenses were keeping wormholes from forming within Jove space, they may have succeeded where the Amarr failed so long ago. Sansha's Nation may have gained a foothold in Jove territory.

Efforts to locate an entrance to the Sansha's base systems have been underway since the attacks began. Recently, a lone pilot managed to get a probe through one of the Sansha wormholes. The probe relayed a single image of the Sansha forces and the wormhole's target system before being obliterated. Upon posting the image on the forums, the EVE roleplaying community's worst fears were realised. The screenshot showed not only a massive Sansha force, but also a familiar-looking structure. The fleet consisted of rows of Nightmares, Chimera carriers, Moros dreadnoughts, Wyvern supercarriers and Avatar class titans. Sat in the background was a structure which has been identified as "Prosper Vault", a key Jove station in 3-CE1R. The entire station and all its technological might has fallen to Sansha's brutal nation. In response to the Sansha capital build-up in Jove space, the four empires have put their fleets on high alert.